proper way to mirror an assy

bob z. needs a little advice. bob z. has a friend. you see, his friend has
this problem. no, no, it's not bob z. it's his friend. his friend was
wondering if you have this sore hand and your vision is going...
:~)>

back to the real issue.
what is the best way to mirror an assy that has the following specs:
Total number of components: 160
Parts: 140
Unique parts: 33
Sub-assemblies 20
Unique sub-assemblies 9

as you can see, this ass'y isn't terribly large. how would you guys (and/or
gals) go about making a complete mirror of this? bob z. has to do this
quite often and it just never turns out real well.

thanks in advance. you guys rock.

--
bob z.

p.s.

I strip away the old debris
That hides a shining car
A brilliant Red Barchetta
From a better vanished time
We'll fire up the willing engine
Responding with a roar
Tires spitting gravel
I commit my weekly crime

"people with less brain power than you are doing more difficult things
everyday"©

 

Bob,

Is it possible to pattern it instead of mirroring it? Sometimes I can get
away with a 180 deg circular pattern - the advantage is that I don't have to
re-create the mates.

If you really have to create a mirrored assembly (complete with mirrored
parts no doubt) then I hope you have better luck than I normally do.

Merry

 

a macro can do it.
1) mirror all parts and place/orient them at their symmetric position
("easy" for XY, XZ or YZ sym. plane )
2) re-create all mates... ("hard" : is it really needed ?)
I'd say 1 to 3 days work... how much would bob.z's friend pay ?

 

what is the going rate? bob z. currently does a combination of items 1 and
2. not very 'user-friendly'.
--
bob z.
p.s.

"people with less brain power than you are doing more difficult things
everyday"©

 

I do a mirror of sheet metal parts and the mirror does not work at all. the
orientation of the individual parts in the assembly end up looking like
someone threw them past the mirror plane like so many dice...

Ben

 

that is exactly what bob z. is seein' right now...
hmm...
--
bob z.
p.s.

"people with less brain power than you are doing more difficult things
everyday"©

 

Bob....(or his friend)+

If You don't need to mirror parts......just do a 180° cirkular pattern
instead ....works terrible well most of the time....otherwise I suffer with
You ... to mirror an assy is not one of the strongest features in SW

Krister

 

Bob
Are you ticking the box that says "L and R hand versions" (something like
this - SW is on the other machine so can't check exact wording)? I get the
random parts generator effect otherwise...
Also, do you find the parts just not mirroring at all (mirror part created,
but empty?) I sometimes get this and only solution I have found is to save
and close the assembly, close Solidworks, restart SW, open assembly and
carry out mirror and it seems to work first go..... I guess another SW
"charming period feature" (to quote a property salesman!)

I quite often mirror assemblies - maybe two sub assemblies containing say 20
parts each without hassle (create one side of boat and then mirror!).
best of luck
Deri

 

A pet peeve of mine for years. They dangle a potentially great process in
front of us, but never get it working.
Subassemblies rarely work with mates enabled. Parts fly everywhere.

You can sometimes get things to hang together without mates and then edit
the mirrored sub, and fix all the components.
The mirrored sub won't update when you later change the original, but then
it wouldn't have with mates either.

A functional mirror copy would be an extremely valuable feature for me ...
more valuable than
all the new features combined from the last several major releases. But I
suspect that they (swx) are
simply stumped on getting it to work, and they have given up. You never
hear a peep
out of them on the subject.

But we have lots of great graphical screen gimmicks




venting disengaged ....
bill

 

yes, i believe this would be incredibly useful! oops, bob z. said 'i'
again. oh well...
:~)>

oh yeah, question #2 - mirrored assy's do indeed explode. really makes
quite a mess!
--
bob z.
p.s.

"people with less brain power than you are doing more difficult things
everyday"©